It
is not the part of wisdom to accept the decreasing number of lynchings
as indicative of any degree of permanency . . . with the coming of peace
[the end of World War II] these same people, perhaps more of them, will
come back to a jobless, poverty-stricken existence. Unless there is productive
work waiting to absorb their energies and to give them hope, the passions
and hatreds which have characterized their lives in the past will again
be aroused . . . Minority peoples who are physically marked as distinct
from the majority may well become the target for the expression of frustration
of an unemployed and angry majority. . . .

The
white South still believes in the inherent right of the white race to
rule supreme over Negroes . . . that certain jobs are the exclusive prerogative
of white people . . . [that] equal protection and adminstration of the
law for all, and the free exercise of the ballot imperil white supremacy.
. . .

If
the South is saved from a post-war era of violence, bloodshed, lynching,
and torture, it will be because sane white Southerners begin now to work
for, as well as talk for, the principles of Democracy.

-- Excerpt
from Jessie Daniel Ames, The Changing Character of Lynching, 1942

16. Why did Jessie Daniel Ames
believe that despite decreases in the number of lynchings, the threat was
not over?